


Brightest Star

by jellie_bean



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: F/M, Julie is dealing with her grief, Luke is there to help her cope, lots of hugging and mutual tears, so it hurts but in a healthy way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:42:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26606182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jellie_bean/pseuds/jellie_bean
Summary: Christmas is a solemn time of the year for Julie Molina. While she watches her neighbors hang their colorful strands of lights along their porch, she pictures the nurse in that sterile room hanging another bag of fluid next to a beeping machine full of red and green numbers. When the cashier wishes her a ‘happy holiday’, her mind transports her back to the little room with too many chairs and peeling wallpaper where the doctor broke the news that broke her heart.
Relationships: Julie Molina/Luke Patterson
Comments: 25
Kudos: 350





	Brightest Star

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome back to round 2 of me avoiding trying to get any real work completed this week. And sacrificing my sleep schedule because I'm too invested. I wish I could tell you this is going to be full of fluff but it's a bit angstier and heavy. I wanted to try and create a parallel between these two character's experience around this time of the year. I hope you enjoy! See you around next time when the plot bunnies get to me again.

Christmas is a solemn time of the year for Julie Molina. While she watches her neighbors hang their colorful strands of lights along their porch, she pictures the nurse in that sterile room hanging another bag of fluid next to a beeping machine full of red and green numbers. When the cashier wishes her a ‘happy holiday’, her mind transports her back to the little room with too many chairs and peeling wallpaper where the doctor broke the news that broke her heart.

The pieces are beginning to become unhinged inside of her chest again.

She truly commends herself for her performance at school, brushing past classmates she was more like acquaintances with that ask her how she’s doing. How is she doing? Pffft--she’s doing fine. It’s been over a year--why the need to act as if it happened yesterday? Julie’s fake smile and her casual response is believable enough to convince them though and they leave her alone to her thoughts. Too many. Ringing too loudly in her head. Whispering ‘What if...’ and ‘Remember when…’ Scenes of a distorted reality continue to unfold behind her eyes while she stares at the whiteboard in her English class, the teacher’s voice a distant echo to the voices of the people in her brain.

Her award winning smile immediately drops the moment she closes the bathroom stall door behind her. A second of absolute silence until…

She lets out an exasperated groan and balls her fingers into fists on either side of her head, tapping them repeatedly against her temples. 

If they play All I Want For Christmas one more time on the speaker between passing periods, she swears she is actually going to lose her mind.

* * *

  
  


The only thing that keeps her head above water during the week before Christmas is the promise of the underclassman dance she and the band are scheduled to play on Saturday night. Reggie, Alex, Luke, and her spend every evening after school rehearsing until they reach a consensus regarding an acceptable rendition of the Christmas song playlist the principal asked them to include in their usual line up. 

“Guys, I’m telling you, Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree needs a little more of this,” Reggie pleads, strumming the chords on his guitar so that the tune resembles more of the punk style like the boys’ original sound back in the day. 

“Oooh yes! And I can kind of come in like this,” adds Alex, dropping a beat to follow Reggie’s bass. The two share a look of pure excitement as Reggie rejoins with his tune and Luke can’t help but insert himself into the moment his best friends are sharing with each other by adding vocals.

As the ghost boys rock out to their own jam, totally opposite than the one they had been rehearsing all evening, Julie lets out that sigh of frustration that she notices has begun to plague all of her interactions with humans--- and ghost boys--- since the month of December arrived. This performance was important to her, and with only two days away, now was not the time to switch the version they had been working on since Monday. What did their ghost brains not understand about that? 

She knows this wasn’t her typical Julie-behavior and a typical someone catches sight of the dejected expression growing across her face. 

God, they picked up on each other well, and instead of finding it heartwarming like she usually did, it causes annoyance to surge through her chest. 

Luke signals for the guys to cut the music and starts toward her as Reggie and Alex halt in apparent confusion. The girl tilts her head back and runs her fingers through her hair, staring up at the ceiling as she pulls the scrunchy from the ponytail it had been restraining and slides it onto her wrist. She continues glaring at an old coweb dangling in the center of the beams in an attempt to regain her composure. 

Julie tries, but of course it doesn’t work. 

“Jules--”

She snaps before he can finish the words that are obviously going to unveil his worry about her in some way---because that’s the type of person he is--- and she just can’t with his empathetic heart and tender eyes tonight.

“I think that’s enough practicing. I have a history exam tomorrow that I need to study for. See you guys in the morning.”

She rushes out of the garage before Reggie can bid her farewell with his usual wave and prays that the boys can find it in themselves to refrain from being nosy for once and leave her be. 

* * *

However, she knows her prayers are futile in reality and it’s of little surprise when the shaggy haired boy wearing a green beanie appears to her left. 

“I’m really not in the mood, Luke. Please leave it,” she urges, keeping her line of vision focused straight ahead, hastening her brisk walk up the cement stairs to her front porch, and ignoring the bounding footsteps of the boy behind her.

Her hand is suddenly enveloped by his as he catches it swinging at her side and he tugs her gently around toward him. She has every intention of breaking away from his grasp. To yell at him to go back to the garage. But as soon as her eyes meet the pleading look in his, she finds wet tears forming rapidly in her eyes.

It takes no time for him to pull her into a tight, comforting embrace and she buries her face in his graphic tee, her sobs causing her shoulders to tremble uncontrollably. His thumb rubs gentle circles in a soothing way along the middle of her back, while his other hand smooths down her hair and finds a place to rest along the crook of her neck. His touch is cool against her warm skin. 

She wants to run--run far away from her friends, her family, the band, even from him. If there was an escape from the overwhelming thoughts and feelings coursing through her heart, she would trade them in a moment. 

Julie would give anything to have her back. 

It seemed like just yesterday it was a pair of steady, thin arms that held her as she whispered how everything was going to be okay into Julie’s ear, rocking her back and forth on the couch in their living room, the warm glow of the Christmas tree casting a golden hue along the face that so closely resembled hers. She was filled with an unshakable sense of hope as she gazed into brown eyes that were full of a strength she did not possess. The eyes reassured her that she was not giving up-- that this was only the beginning of her fight. She was going to beat this thing. They would see the other side together.

Luke pulls back enough to search her face and his cold, calloused thumbs brush away the tears streaming down her cheeks. Her fingers latch onto the hands that are on either side of her face and a sense of remorse builds in her chest for wanting to block him out in the first place. 

He’s a life float as she desperately claws her way out of the crashing waves immobilizing her at every turn she takes, carrying her safely to dry ground.

They stand there holding each other like this for several minutes. She finds her breathing start to mimic the rise and fall of his chest. Wait---why was his chest even moving if he didn’t breathe? Her brow furrows in perplexity, and instead of the grief she had been feeling, she’s now focused on this strange development.

“Luke,” she says quietly, turning to face him once again.

“Yeah?” comes his response, the side of his lips quirking up ever so slightly at her acknowledgement of him.

“Are you breathing?”

He chuckles, pulling his hands from her cheeks and tucking them into his pockets. He takes a small step backward, dropping his eyes down to the ground. If ghosts were capable of looking embarrassed, she swears that his reaction right now would be it. 

“Nah,” he states somewhat sadly, returning his cautious green eyed gaze back to meet hers. “It was something my mom taught me how to do when I was little that helped me calm down. I guess my body still has some weird way of doing it. I thought it would help you, Jules.”

It takes everything in her to abstain from releasing more tears at his admission, and she resorts to biting on her lip, her arms wrapping around him again in reply. He returns the hug by squeezing her tightly to him. 

“Listen, whatever is going on right now, I want you to know that me and the guys are here for you. This time of the year is hard for me too,” he adds and Julie pulls away from him, wondering what he means by his comment. She knows that the band didn’t die in December so she’s left going over what other details about his life he’s told her.

He leans against the railing of the porch, his arms crossed against his chest. The vulnerability in his tone is clear when he starts to elaborate in answer to her questioning look. “December was the month I ran away from my parents. The last time I saw them before...you know…” Luke’s voice cuts off as he swallows thickly.

She nods her head to assure him she understands him completely and reaches out to grab his hand and lends a comforting squeeze, her thumb running over his knuckles.

He waits without saying another word. She’s well aware that he’s not expecting her to share anything if she doesn’t want to, but tonight feels like the right time to talk about it.

“We found out my mom was dying last December,” Julie finally tells him solemnly, his hand returning her favor from a moment ago. “She is the bravest person I ever knew, Luke. So sure that she was going to beat the tumor the doctors found in her brain. I don’t think I ever doubted her optimism about her illness. Not until the very last day.”

Her train of thought breaks as she stares at their intertwined fingers, her mind replaying how her mother’s story ended. So suddenly and without warning.

“I think she hid a lot of her pain, but it was horrible watching her suffer and act like she was fine. God Luke---I miss her so much,” Julie chokes, dragging the back of her free hand to wipe at the wetness of her eyes.

The boy with the beanie tugs her into his arms again with tears threatening to spill from his own eyes, probably due to her getting all emotional again. Darn their overly connected bond with one another. If there was one thing Julie hated more than crying herself, it was seeing him cry. 

“I know I never met her Julie, but you sound just like her. The resilience. The putting on a brave face. The hiding your pain.” He sniffs a little before he continues, “You gotta let us in though. Through hell or high water, you know we want to be there for you. Cause you’ve done the same for us.”

She never really thought about it before. Luke had a point. Despite the crazy shenanigans and silliness he was normally known for, she couldn’t deny that he was wise beyond his ghostly teenage years. 

Her heart no longer felt as burdened, spilling these words so that they were out in the open. Julie had wanted so badly to pretend like she was okay. She supposed deep down she feared what relapsing back into her grief could mean for the band.

Her life had flipped upside down in the past few months though and she felt confident that she wouldn’t be able to distance herself from music-- even if she wanted to-- now that she had them to lean on.

“Okay,” she agrees, giving him a half smile. He looks down at her and tucks a loose curl behind her ear, contentment beginning to rise from the tips of her toes until it reaches her chest. “Thank you by the way.” 

She’s caught off guard in the best possible way when he takes the opportunity to seal the space between them by pressing lips to hers in a chaste kiss. “Anytime, Jules,” he mutters tenderly against her mouth. 

The fact that they could kiss, and did in fact kiss often on different occasions, never failed to blow her mind. 

Julie wishes they could stay together in this moment forever, but she wasn’t fully lying when she told the band she had a history exam to study for tonight.

“You wanna eat ice cream and help me study?” she asks, putting a damper on the intimate moment. 

The quizzical expression he shoots her is the only answer she needs. “Uhhh only if the first one to the freezer gets the double chocolate mint chip,” he tells her and before she can inform him that he’s not allowed to use his ghostly powers to help him win, he poofs out of sight. 

A bubble of annoyed laughter rises in her throat as she makes her way to the front door. Before she turns the knob, she looks back at the stars in the clear night sky and sends a silent ‘thanks’ to the one shining brightest.


End file.
